October 23, 2012

In times of data leakage, hacker attacks, trojan horses, and various other data security threats, efficient and effective data encryption has becomes a critical requirement for many enterprises. This need applies to XML as much as to most other forms of data.

Intel and IBM have collaborated to demonstrate that a combination of modern hardware and software can perform effective encryption with very high efficiency.

In particular, the latest Intel Xeon E5 and E7 processor families provide AES-NI, which is a set of new instructions in the Intel Xeon processor that help accelerate encryption, decryption, key generation, matrix manipulation, and carry-less multiplication.

A joint benchmark has measured the performance impact of encrypting and decrypting XML data in DB2 9.7 using the IBM InfoSphere Guardium Data Encryption capabilities on the Intel Xeon E5 platform.

The results of the TPoX benchmark show that full encryption can be performed for a read/write XML transaction processing application with less than 4% overhead. This is a fantastic result.

More information on these tests and on the technologies and products used, is available here:

October 21, 2012

IOD is the premier IBM event for Information Management software, including DB2, Informix, Netezza, Cognos, Big Data, SPSS, Content Maagement, and other product areas. The conference program is very diverse and has something for everyone. At IOD you can choose from more than 1500 sessions and 100+ hands-on labs.

Not surprisingly, XML continues to be an important topic for information management, and there are various XML-related sessions at IOD. In particular, I’m looking forward to the following sessions where some of IBM’s customers are sharing their success stories with DB2 pureXML:

If you can’t be in Las Vegas this week (maybe because you’re on the other side of the globe?), how would Berlin work for you?!

The annual European conference of the International DB2 User Group (IDUG) is coming up in Berlin, Germany, on November 4 to 9, 2012. For a number of years there hasn’t been an IDUG conference without any XML sessions, and the same is true this year. Here are some presentations that can you see in Berlin: